


I Offer My True Heart (I'll Send Over a Forget-Me-Not)

by SOMETHINREAL



Series: sungjin is an idiot [2]
Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mentions of drugs, based on the film moonlight, but in the form of a flashback, it's less sad than it is emotional i guess, it's practically two sentences, mentions of abuse, mentions of marijuana, slight angst??, spoiler brian is still completely in love with sungjin, this sounds super sad and angsty but it's really not i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 00:18:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15327573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SOMETHINREAL/pseuds/SOMETHINREAL
Summary: “Is this Brian Kang?”“Yeah,” he said after a pause, “who’s this?”“It’s Sungjin. Sungjin Park.”(alternatively: the one where sungjin calls brian after not seeing him for thirteen years and unknowingly breaking his heart. but brian doesn't love sungjin. not anymore. or, at least, that's what he tells himself).





	I Offer My True Heart (I'll Send Over a Forget-Me-Not)

**Author's Note:**

> this is based so heavily off of moonlight ! it is an incredible film and i highly recommend even though the ending is kinda meh. hence, i wrote my own ending to it except with sungjin and brian because everyone needs a little more sungbri in their lives.

It was nearly twelve in the morning when Brian got a call. He wasn’t sleeping, but it was a little out of the ordinary for him to receive such a thing at that time of day. It was probably his mother, he realized, as she’d been trying to contact him more, despite the fact that he didn’t ever pick up (even though he always gets her voicemails of _Younghyunie, why don’t you come see me anymore? I know I messed up a lot back then, and you don’t have to love me anymore, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not your mother. I still worry about you so much because you never answer my calls_.) And he didn’t want to pick up, even though he _wasn’t_ sleeping anyways, but the dull ring was pounding at his head and he wanted it to stop, so he picked it up without looking and held it up to his ear.

“Mom, I told you, I’ll be around soon enough. You don’t need to worry about me anymore.”

But the voice that returned was not the crackly voice of his mother.

“Hello?”

It was a man, Brian realized, a man’s voice that he swore he could place from somewhere, but he couldn’t quite think of at the time.

“Um, hello?” Brian responded, unsure of both who the caller was and why they were calling.

“Is this Brian Kang?”

“Yeah,” he said after a pause, “who’s this?”

“It’s Sungjin. Sungjin Park.”

Sungjin Park. Sungjin from school. Sungjin that used to be Brian’s best friend. Brian’s mind flashed back to the last time he saw Sungjin Park. Brian was glaring at him in the back of a cop car. Sungjin was watching wordlessly as Brian was driven away. Why, why would Sungjin Park be calling him at twelve in the morning after not having seen each other for almost thirteen years?

“You do remember me, right? I mean, it’s fine if you don’t. It’s been a while.” How could he forget?

“I remember you,” Brian said quietly. “Um, why--”

“I was just thinking about you,” Sungjin said. Brian’s chest all of the sudden felt tight. “I uh, work in a restaurant now--”

Brian cut him off. “You work in a restaurant?”

Back then, when they were seventeen, Sungjin had always been head over heels for music. He swore that he would go into music when they were older, that he and Brian both would study together at UofT. Things didn’t quite turn out that way in the end.

“Yeah,” Sungjin told him, sensing his disbelief. “I guess it’s more of a diner. Anyways, we have this jukebox in the corner where people can pick a song for five cents. I had this customer come in, and he played this _song_ , man, and it just made me think about you. You’ve gotta come up to hear it one day. Maybe I could cook you a meal and we could catch up while we listen.”

Brian suddenly felt both upset and hopeful all at once. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe we can.”

 

-

 

It’s two weeks later and Brian is sat in the carpark of _Park’s Diner_ in the suburbs of Toronto, an eight hour drive from his home in Brooklyn, just to see Sungjin (not that he will admit that). He’d visited his mother at her rehabilitation home, told himself that he was going for her, that he just happened to be in the direction of Sungjin’s diner, that it was purely coincidence.

When he thinks of Sungjin he thinks of the smell of the sidewalk after it rains, that acidic type uncomfortable yet heartwarming scent that he could relish in. He thinks of waves that crash into the shore harshly, thinks of broken promises and a betrayal of trust. When Brian thinks about Sungjin Park, he is reminded of all of the times he could fall back on Sungjin and Sungjin would catch him, and the one time he fell back on Sungjin and he didn’t.

Brian does not love Sungjin Park. He used to, a lifetime ago. But now he’s thirty and living alone in Brooklyn with his own music school and he does not love Sungjin Park, but he does not hate him either. What’s the point in holding a grudge over someone who’s been non-existent for over a decade?

When Brian walks into Park’s Diner, Sungjin does not recognize him. Perhaps it’s that he’s not looking. Brian thinks he physically looks the same from when he was seventeen, just that his hair’s longer and blond and he’s more okay with a five o’clock shadow. It’s Sungjin who’s different. He’s got a whole different aura about him now; the black shirts and combat boots and sleek hair have now been replaced by a short sleeved button down that must be his work shirt, hair that rests above his cheekbones with golden highlights, dark bags under his eyes. He’s matured too, but Brian supposes that it’s expected with thirteen years of growing.

“Have a seat,” he calls, not looking up from where he’s wiping down a table. “I’ll be with you in a second.” And his voice is clearer than it had been over the phone; now Brian can hear how much it’s changed. It’s raspier, less boyish and more manly. Everything is a little overwhelming.

Brian finds himself a spot in an empty booth and folds his hands in his lap, suddenly nervous.

He can feel Sungjin approaching from behind him.

“Hi,” he says. “Can I start you off with a-- Brian?” Looking at him feels the same as it had years ago. For a second it’s like they’re seventeen with their hearts on their sleeves and without a care in the world. “God, why didn’t you say anything? What brings you here?”

“Well, you invited me, did you not?” Brian asks, because he can’t let Sungjin know.

“I didn’t think you’d actually show up.”

And it’s fair to think such a thing. Because if Sungjin has asked when Brian was twenty two, he would have told Sungjin to screw off. He would have let what had happened when they were seventeen plague his mind and direct his thinking. Would have been irrationate about the whole ordeal. But he’s matured now. The past is now behind him. (Or at least, he tries to forget how much it affected him).

“You know I’d never turn down a meal,” Brian says, to try and break the ice a little bit. He nods when Sungjin holds up a pot of coffee and watches him pour it into the little mug.

“So you just drove all the way down from wherever you live, just to get a coffee and a meal, from _me_?” Sungjin says _from me?_ like he thinks that Brian will still be mad. And he’s not mad. He was never mad, upset, yeah, maybe a lifetime ago he’d been upset about it. But never mad. Brian had been _disappointed_ all those years ago, and maybe a small sliver of him still is.

“Yeah,” Brian says, because he had.

“Bullshit,” Sungjin tells him and sits down in the booth across from him.

“No really.” Brian shakes his head, sips his coffee even though it burns him, just to occupy himself. “I did.”

“Why would you?” Sungjin asks.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You know damn well why not,” Sungjin tells him, and then all of a sudden, he’s seventeen again and is standing tall while Sungjin throws punches at him, at the hands of boys who wanted nothing more than to see Brian rot, telling him, _Stand down, Brian, for the love of God, stand down,_ but he couldn’t. And he knows now as a thirty year old that Sungjin has always been loyal, and that he didn’t want to hurt Brian, that both of them would have been in shit otherwise, but it had still stung. And then, a few days later, when Brian was cuffed in the back of a cop car for doing something unspeakable to one of those who wronged him, Sungjin was stood on the curb, just watching, eyes screaming _I’m sorry_ , but face blank. Brian just glared. _I trusted you._

Back to the present, Sungjin is staring at him.

“I’m not mad at you, Sungjin. Why would I come here if I was still mad? Don’t walk on eggshells around me; you don’t need to.” And it’s the truth. Why would he be mad about something that seems so small now, something that he had forgotten about for the longest time, that he could never blame Sungjin for in the first place?

“Alright,” Sungjin digresses, “okay. I have to go check on some tables. Then I’ll make your meal. You can look at the menu if you want, or you could have the chef’s special.” Sungjin says _chef’s special_ like he wants that to be Brian’s meal, and Brian is too lazy to look through the menu and has never been one to turn down a meal when offered so he nods.

“Yeah,” he says, “that sounds good.”

Sungjin grins when he stands up from the booth. “One chef’s special, coming up.”

 

-

 

When Sungjin returns with Brian’s meal, he’s pleasantly surprised to find that it’s chicken tacos with a side of salsa and sour cream. “What are you, Mexican now?” he asks, but digs in anyways. Sungjin shrugs at him from the side of the table as he refills Brian’s coffee cup.

“I try,” Sungjin says. “I’ll be back in a sec. Gotta go clean up a bit before closing.”

And as Sungjin walks away, Brian takes a moment to replay what’s happened so far over in his head. It’s been different. Not weird, per se, because even though the fact that they were best friends and they’re not anymore lead to a rocky do over, Brian isn’t weird with Sungjin. They'd been so close for so long that he doesn’t think that any amount of bad things and time between them could make things weird. It’s just different. Sungjin is still Sungjin, but he’s grown and weathered and doesn’t make Brian fill with fire to the core anymore. Sungjin has matured, and Brian’s sure he has too, it’s just a little strange when the last time Brian had seen him, Sungjin was hardly growing facial hair and he still felt like he had a part to play. When Brian wore his heart on his plaid patterned sleeve and didn’t care to hide anything he felt about anything. They’ve both become so different that it’s a little alarming.

But at the same time, so many things have stayed the same. He’s still got the same smile, his almond eyes still squint the way they always used to when he was focusing on something that Brian had said, his shoulders still held the same width; if anything they were even broader, like he held more on them as he grew older. Sungjin Park was still Sungjin Park, despite not being the Sungjin that Brian knew once upon a time. And maybe it’s better this way, but maybe, Brian wonders if they things that took place when they were teenagers was still fresh in Sungjin’s mind, if the Sungjin that he once knew was still hidden somewhere beneath the man that is now sitting across from him.

“How is it?” Sungjin asks; the bell at the front rings, signifying the departure of Sungjin’s final customer, leaving them alone together in the diner.

“So good,” Brian says, his mouth still full, “I had no idea you were such a good cook.”

“Well, you learn some things after having to look after a kid for a few years.”

“You’re a dad?” Brian asks, and it’s not that he shouldn’t have been expecting it, because Sungjin is thirty one years old. He has a life now, so why wouldn’t he have a kid? It’s just that some deep, locked away part of Brian was hoping he didn’t.

“No!” Sungjin exclaims. “No, no way. It’s my sister’s kid. She couldn’t watch after her for some personal reasons so I took her in for a while. They’re back together now. You knew I never wanted kids.”

“Yeah,” Brian says, and he’s still thinking the whole thing over in his head. “So then, are you seeing someone?”

“Well, I actually got married a few years back,” Sungjin tells him, eyes flicking over Brian trying to pick up the last few bits of chicken and rice that fell out of the soft taco with his fork. Brian doesn’t look up from his plate.

“Congrats, man,” he says, trying his best to sound enthusiastic about the whole ordeal. He’s not sure whether he does a convincing job or not because Sungjin snorts.

“Don’t be,” he says. “We got divorced two years ago.”

“Oh.” Brian glances up at him then, to try and get a feel for his emotions. He just kind of looks blank, if not a little relieved. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Nah,” Sungjin tells him, shaking his head. “It was a messy break up but we really weren’t right for each other. We couldn’t give each other what the other needed. She— she didn’t like that I couldn’t give her what she needed. So it’s fine.”

“And after that?”

“After?” Sungjin asks, looking up at the ceiling as if to ponder. “I was in a few relationships at separate times; a few girls here, a guy or two there. None of them were right. I couldn’t ever find what I needed, so I guess I’ve been single ever since.” And Brian tries really hard not to think that he might know what Sungjin needs. (But he’s not in love with Sungjin, not after this much time. The thought itself is crazy). “What about you, then?”

“What about me?” Brian asks, because honestly speaking, there hasn’t been much going on in his life.

“What have you been doing? Or, more importantly, _who_ have you been doing?” And Sungjin says it with his shiteating grin that makes Brian feel tingly and welcome and so many things that he can’t comprehend, let alone begin to name.

“For the first question, I moved out to Brooklyn and started my own music school. Well, it’s less of a school more than it is classes in this cute old warehouse that I’ve renovated. I teach bass and guitar and piano with a few other stringed instruments here and there. You know woodwind was never my forte.”

“And for the second?”

“Well,” Brian says, feeling his cheeks heat up like he’s seventeen and his hormones don’t know what to do with themselves, “I’m— I’m not.”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t really been with anyone since high school.” And Brian can tell that Sungjin knows exactly what that means because his eyes get soft when they meet Brian’s.

“Not one?”

“Well,” Brian says, clears his throat. “I was seeing a girl in college. She couldn’t-- she didn’t-- I couldn’t love her. Not in the way she needed. We’re still friends I guess, but no. I haven’t been with anyone since.”

Sungjin looks like he’s taking in the information fully, nodding his head after a moment of it, but maybe it’s less that he gets it and more that he’s just trying not to make Brian feel weird about it.

“That’s fine,” Sungjin says. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

It gets quiet for a long moment as Sungjin looks him over, and Brian’s pondering everything when he wonders why Sungjin really asked him here two weeks ago.

“Sungjin,” he says, and it’s weird to have Sungjin’s name on his tongue for the first time in so long, it’s almost _foreign_. “Why did you call me?”

“What?”

“Why did you invite me here?”

“I…” Sungjin trails off, sighing as he lets his shoulders drop. “I told you,” he says, “that I had a customer play this song on the jukebox and it reminded me of you.”

“Yeah, but that can’t just be it. We haven’t seen each other in so long, I just--”

“That’s it. I haven’t thought about you in a while, but this song really did it for me. I swear I’m not trying to be weird, just-- you have to hear it.” And when Sungjin finishes, he’s smiling at Brian, and Brian suddenly feels better.

“So then are you going to show me?”

And Sungjin all of the sudden looks very nervous, but he nods his head and raises himself to walk over the jukebox in the corner. Brian watches with steady eyes as he puts in five cents and flips through the songs for a moment, before finally finding the one he must have been looking for, because he smiles a little, and presses a button. As he walks back over, a song that Brian has heard somewhere before, something in a film or on the radio or on one of the old mixtapes that Sungjin would make him whenever he did a favour like proofread an essay or listen to Sungjin rant or sleep in his bed and not be weird about it. Frank Sinatra’s _Somethin’ Stupid._

 _I know I stand in line until you think you have the time_  
_To spend an evening with me_  
_And if we go someplace to dance, I know that there's a chance_  
_You won't be leaving with me_  
_And afterwards we drop into a quiet little place and have a drink or two_ _  
And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like "I love you.”_

Their eyes meet after Sungjin sits down silently, presumably for Brian to hear the words, but after the last line of the first verse, Sungjin cracks a grin. Brian feels his face go warm.

“I would always say the most stupid things to you way back when,” he says, and Brian smiles back, because yeah, he remembers. He thinks back to them, how stupid they’d been, for far too many reasons, for the fact that they did things that could have gotten them in so much trouble, for all of the times that they’d childishly made unrealistic plans for their future, for them being hopelessly in love but either too scared to admit it or too blind to see it.

 _I can see it in your eyes_  
_That you despise the same old lies you heard the night before_  
_And though it's just a line to you, for me it's true_ _  
And never seemed so right before_

“You really did,” Brian says. “You were a whole idiot back then.”

“Trust me, I know,” Sungjin responds, and Brian knows that it means so much more than it seems. “For some of the stuff that I’ve done, I still am.”

 _I practice every day to find some clever lines to say_  
_To make the meaning come through_  
_But then I think I'll wait until the evening gets late and I'm alone with you_  
_The time is right, your perfume fills my head, the stars get red and, oh, the night's so blue_  
_And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like "I love you."_

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Brian says.

“I’ve hurt a lot of people in the past,” Sungjin tells him, and yeah, while Sungjin has been a bit of an idiot when it comes to people's feelings, that doesn’t make him a bad person.

“So have I.”

 _The time is right, your perfume fills my head, the stars get red and, oh, the night's so blue_ _  
_ _And then I go and spoil it all by sayin' something stupid like "I love you."_

Their eyes meet slowly, Sungjin’s smile is still there, Brian’s heart is still racing.

 _I love you_  
_I love you_  
_I love you_ _  
I love you_

Brian’s foot finds Sungjin’s under the table.

 “Do you want to go to my place?”

“Yeah,” Brian says. “Yeah, I’d love to.”

 

—

 

Sungjin’s studio apartment is in this warehouse-turned-complex a few blocks from the park that they used to have lunch in when they were still in high school. It’s weird to Brian that Sungjin is still so close to all of the things that he used to know, that Sungjin never moved out of the city like he said he would. There are framed pictures on the exposed brick walls of Sungjin and his sister, a little girl smack dab in the middle of them grinning wide; this must be the niece that he’d watched over. In a corner by the bed stands the guitar that Brian had saved up for and bought Sungjin for his seventeenth birthday, with the same Captain America charm tied to the tuning knob of the d string.

The whole place is so homey and so indescribably Sungjin (from the stack of books in the corner (a mix of English and Hangul, fiction, non-fiction, Murakami, Poe, Austin, the essentials), to the heap of guitar strings, picks, and other paraphernalia shoved into a bin at the foot of Sungjin’s bed), but it all of a sudden feels very hard to breathe.

“Do you mind if I get out of this?” Sungjin asks, tugging at the collar of his dress shirt, and Brian shakes his head.

He’s hardly expecting it when Sungjin doesn’t bother going into the bathroom and just strips out of his shirt right in the middle of the room. (To be fair, there really is only one big room, and he’s got his back facing Brian so there’s not really much to see, it’s just a that it’s little overwhelming). Brian tries not to, but he can’t help but look at the way that Sungjin’s back muscles ripple under his skin as he lifts his arms over his head and slips on a fitted t-shirt, and the sight is gone before Brian even had time to marvel in it.

When Sungjin turns back around, it seems as though he can sense Brian’s wariness. “Are you alright?” he asks, walking back over to Brian. Another thing that Brian’s noticed about Sungjin now is that he’s grown quite a few inches taller than he had been in school. Back then, he and Brian had been the same height, but now, Brian has stayed the same and Sungjin towers over him.

“Fine,” Brian says. “I just have a little headache is all.”

Sungjin smiles. “Come on then,” he says, nodding towards the stove. “I’ll make you some green tea.”

Brian follows him to the other end of the room, leans against the wall as he watches Sungjin boil some water. The whole situation feels lax and domestic to Brian, whose head is not aching, but is cloudy with too many thoughts and emotions and opinions of the man in front of him.

“Who _are_ you?” Sungjin asks, turning around. He’s got his hands shoved into the pockets of his black jeans.

“What do you mean?” Brian asks, because, well, he’s himself. He doesn’t think he’s changed that much from school, just that he’s a bit harder now and he dresses different.

“Who are you?” Sungjin repeats. “You’re different. That jacket, those glasses, are you _blond_ now?” Brian takes off his cap to run his hand through his hair subconsciously. He leaves it on the table next to the mug that Sungjin had placed down for him.

“I-- I’m me,” he says. “I’m Brian.” He glances down at the ground, pursing his lips. “I’m not trying to be anything else.”

“Hey,” Sungjin says, “hey, hey, I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. I just… I haven’t seen you in so long. This just isn’t what I was expecting.”

“Well, what were you expecting?”

Sungjin sighs quietly, glancing down at the ground. “Do you remember the last time we saw each other?”

And of course Brian remembers. It’s hard to forget someone whom he thought he could trust hurting him like that at the hands of people who didn’t mean shit to either of them.

“I spend a lot of my time trying to forget,” he says. When Sungjin looks back up, his eyes are sad.  

“I’m sorry,” he tells him. “For what happened. I was, and still am an idiot for all that. I wasn’t thinking, and that’s not an excuse but I just want you to know that if I could go back I wouldn’t have done what I did on that day.”

“You know,” Brian says, “after everything went down, all the stuff with those guys, with my mom, with you, I was just so _done_ with it. So I moved to Brooklyn the day I turned nineteen. I built myself from the ground up. I built myself harder, tougher, so people couldn’t hurt me anymore. I wasn’t Brian, the kid that people beat up in the washrooms and call a fag, I was just Brian. I’d never just been Brian before. So I changed my look. I figured if I looked tougher, I would be tougher; that people would take me seriously. I lost all my oversized sweaters and fluffy hair and replaced them with leather jackets and combat boots and earrings. I bleached my hair on a whim. So yeah. I guess I am different. But I’m still Brian.”

 

“You were never that to me,” Sungjin says.

 

“What?”

 

“You were never Brian, that kid that people thought they could fuck around with because he looked and acted different. You were just Brian to me. You were my best friend.” Sungjin turns back around and reaches into the cupboard to grab the tea. He drops two bags into the pot of water, grabs a spoon to stir. There’s so much Brian wants to say, so much that he needs to get out but his throat feels so dry. It feels like hours before he finally speaks up.

 

“You,” he says, breaking off. Sungjin’s back stills. “You're the only man that’s ever touched me.”

 

And just like _that_ , he’s seventeen again. They’d been sitting on a beach (though, it was much less of a beach than it was just a rigid body of water and some stones crushed small, but not fine enough to be truly considered sand), Sungjin had brought a spliff, rolled tight, a grin on his lips as he brought it out of his pocket. Brian had never smoked, but he pretended like he did so Sungjin would think he was cooler. They’d talked about some things, about Brian’s mother and how she would do anything to get another line, another shot, another _something_ to clear her messy head. They talked about all of the boys at school who wanted to see Brian’s end. They talked about everything, the weed only edging them on further. And maybe that’s the reason, but just like _that_ , Sungjin had kissed him hard on the mouth, and just like _that_ , Sungjin’s hands worked their way into Brian’s jeans. And Brian loved it, god he loved every _second_ of it, having never have felt any of these things with anyone before. His head pressed into Sungjin’s neck, Sungjin’s name coming out like a mantra in a bare breath of a moan as Sungjin’s hands stroked him to completion. And then Sungjin drove him home, and it was the last good memory of him that Brian had.

And just like that, it had changed _everything_ for Brian.

“The only one.”

“And you’ve never--”

“I’ve never let anyone touch me since. I don’t like it.” 

“But you--”

“I did when it was you,” Brian finishes, and then it falls silent.

The embrace that Sungjin pulls him into is tight and warm and makes Brian feel something for once. Sungjin’s arms feel like heaven wrapped around Brian, because they’re strong and broad and hold Brian like he’s worth something, and he doesn’t even know what that feels like anymore. Brian doesn’t even realize that he’s crying until Sungjin is hushing him and running his fingers through Brian’s hair.

“That’s-- that why it hurt so much,” Brian stutters out into Sungjin’s shoulder. “When you broke my trust. Because I loved you and it was _ruined_. I spent so much time trying _hate_ you because it ruined everything else for me too. I couldn’t date guys because I would try to find ones like you and I never could, and I couldn’t date girls because I couldn’t love them back and I was _ruined_ for the rest of my life.”

“I’m sorry,” Sungjin whispers into his hair, “I’m so sorry, Bri.” Brian grips onto Sungjin’s shirt so hard his knuckles turn white, for the fear that Sungjin will leave now that the cat’s out of the bag, the fear that he’s going to be alone again. “I’ve wanted to say I’m sorry for so long, you have no idea, but after school I had no way to get in contact with you and I knew that you would never accept it. That it would never be okay. I knew that you could hold a grudge. I’m sorry. I can’t put into words how sorry I am, Brian.”

“How did you even find my number?” Brian asks into the crook of Sungjin’s neck, shirt damp with his tears that have slowly begun to stop flowing.

“I found Dowoon on facebook and asked him,” Sungjin explains.

“Fucker.” Brian scoffs, letting go of Sungjin’s shirt to run his fingertips over his back through the thin fabric. Sungjin’s hands don’t stop carding through Brian’s hair. “And it’s not okay,” Brian says. “What you did, it’s not okay, it never will be, and it messed me up for a really, really long time.”

“Brian--”

“ _But_ that doesn’t mean that I’m mad at you about it.” Sungjin pulls back to look at him. “Did it hurt?” Brian asks rhetorically, “yeah, it hurt like a bitch and it’s gonna take a while for things to be right again. But I’m not mad at you about it. Even then, I wasn’t mad at you. Sure, a large part of me thought I was mad at you, that I hated you. But I didn’t. I was just disappointed and heartbroken and too young to know any better. I’ve matured. So have you. We aren’t kids anymore, Sungjin.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“Can I kiss you?” Quiet, questioning, timid. _He’s scared._ And yet Brian’s heart still stops.

“Please.”

Sungjin Park tastes like peach candies and cigarettes and the slightest hint of the spearmint gum he’d popped into his mouth before the car ride here. He feels like the waves crashing against the shore at high tide, all sharp and hard but so pleasing. He feels like walking for the first time, like the tingle in your skin when your cold hands touch warm water. Sungjin Park is like the physical embodiment of all things holy, of something that could keep Brian’s head still but hazy, of something that could somehow keep him grounded but make him feel like he’s floating.

Sungjin’s hands feel like heaven on his skin. The touch is more intimate above all else, rough fingertips pressing gently against Brian’s soft stomach, to each raised scar on his skin from past years’ abuse from school; Sungjin wants to press his lips to every single one, a silent apology in the only way he knows how. He takes Brian’s glasses off and puts them on the counter next to their forgotten teas.

They move to the bed, and they don’t do anything more than kiss; they strip down to their underwear and aren’t afraid to let their hands wander, but not from pleasure, for exploration, for relearning each other in the most intimate way they’ve ever have. Sungjin kisses everywhere he can reach, everything he can see, a mole here, a scar there, a small patch of discoloured skin; he lets his lips wander, too.  
  
Sungjin holds him in his arms, whispering sweet nothings and praises into his ears, talking to Brian until he falls asleep. The moonlight shines through the large floor to ceiling windows, bathing Brian in silver light, the day's stress wiped away from his sleeping face, looking so beautiful as he curls into Sungjin in his slumber. A kiss is pressed gently to his forehead; his body relaxes even more at the contact. And all through all, the _I love you_ is implicit, but it’s there.

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](http://twitter.com/somethin_real)


End file.
